Chapter 21
She came after some time. I heard it all before I saw her, the shuffle of her bag being set down, the sigh she always made when she finally took her shoes off, the small satisfied hum that meant she had smelled whatever was cooking and approved before she even saw it.
"Something smells—" She rounded the corner and stopped.
I was at the stove. The pasta was plated. The sauce was warm. The table was set. And she was standing in the doorway with her hair half out of its pins and her lipstick faded and a look on her face that I was not going to examine too closely.
"You cooked," she said.
"You asked."
"I asked if there was food. I didn't ask you to—"
She gestured at everything. The stove, the table, the wine, the napkins she had been too embarrassed to use. "This."
I didn't answer. I picked up the plates and set them on the table.
She moved closer, peering at the pasta, then at me, then back at the pasta. Her eyes were bright. Tired, but bright.
"Are you trying to impress me?" she asked, batting her eyelashes with a cheeky grin.
I sat down. "Sit. Eat."
She sat. She picked up her fork. She took a bite. Her eyes closed for a moment, and when they opened again she was looking at me with something that made my chest tighten.
"This is really good," she said.
"I know."
She laughed. It was the same laugh from this morning, light and unforced, and it filled the small kitchen like something I hadn't known was missing.
We ate in the quiet that had started to feel normal.
Her across from me, her hair falling loose, her feet tucked under her on the chair because she refused to sit like a normal person.
The last of the light came through her trinket curtains and scattered across the table, and she looked at me over her glass of wine and said:
"So what did you do today?"
I thought about Alex. About Oliver and Anne, who would be checking his locks tonight or probably have nightmares. About the woman across from me, who would never know that two people who had hurt her had learned, today, what it meant to be small.
"Nothing," I said. "Cooked."
She raised an eyebrow. "All day?"
"I'm a slow cook."
She snorted into her wine. I watched her drink, watched her cheeks flush slightly from the wine or the heat of the kitchen or something else entirely. She caught me looking and her mouth curved into a smile that was trying to be innocent and failing completely.
"What?" she said.
"Nothing."
"You're staring."
"You're worth staring at."
Her face went pink. Actually pink, the same way it had that first morning when she had opened the door and seen me without a shirt, the color rising up her neck and across her cheeks in a wave she couldn't control no matter how hard she tried.
"Shut up," she said, but her voice had gone soft at the edges.
I didn't shut up. I just watched her try to hide her smile behind her wine glass and felt something settle in my chest that I wasn't ready to name.
She finished her glass. I poured her another. She gave me a look that said she knew exactly what I was doing and was choosing to let me get away with it.
We sat there as the light faded. She told me about Sienna approving her revisions, about a colleague who had brought in pastries, about the way she had walked the other direction every time she saw Oliver in the hallway. She said his name like it meant nothing. Like he was nothing.
Good.
The conversation drifted. The wine went to her head. I could see it in the way her words started to run together, in the way her laugh came easier, in the way she kept looking at me like she was trying to figure something out.
I was about to clear the plates when she spoke.
"I was thinking..." She was staring at her empty glass, her fingers tracing the rim. "The couch is too small for you."
I leaned back. "What a quick observer."
She glared at me, but there was no heat in it. "I'm serious. Your legs hang off the end. Your back probably hates you. And you keep stealing the blanket."
"I do not steal the blanket."
"You literally wrap yourself in it like a burrito. I woke up freezing last night."
I had no response to that. Mainly because it was true.
"So..." She was still tracing the rim of her glass, not looking at me. Her voice had gone smaller, hesitant, like she was working up to something. "Since it's uncomfortable for your old back, why don't you sleep on the bed?"
Old. Again.
I set my glass down. "How old do you think I am, kitten?"
She looked up at that, a grin already forming. "How much money will I get if I sell you to a museum?"
"You're hilarious."
"I know." She batted her eyelashes at me. "So? What do you think?"
The question was casual. Almost. But there was something underneath it, something careful, like she was asking more than she was saying. Like the couch was just an excuse for something she didn't know how to ask for directly.
I reached across the table and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Her breath caught. Just slightly. Just enough for me to notice.
"That depends," I said.
"On what?"
"On where you want me to."
She looked at me for a long moment. Her fingers found my wrist, wrapped around it, held on.
"I want you to..." She swallowed. "Sleep on the bed."
I stood. Pulled her up with me. Her hands found my chest, flat-palmed, the way they had that first morning in her kitchen. But this time she didn't push. Her fingers spread against the fabric of my shirt, pressing in, like she was checking that I was real.
"Then I will," I said.
Her smile was small. Soft. Something that was just for me.
I kissed her. Not the quick peck from this morning. Something slower, deeper, something that let her taste the wine on my lips, the sauce, the patience I had been holding all day. Her fingers curled into my shirt, pulling me closer.
When I pulled back, her eyes were dark, her lips parted, her cheeks flushed.
"You taste like pasta," she murmured.
"You taste like wine."
"That's not fair..." she breathed.
"What's not?"
"You can't just—" She hiccuped. Totally drunk.
"You can't just kiss me like that and then talk like nothing happened."
"Who said I was acting like nothing happened?"
Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. Nothing came out.
I kissed her again. Her back hit the counter, her hands sliding up into my hair, and I forgot, for a moment, that I was supposed to be looking for a chain.
That I was supposed to leave. That there was a world outside this small kitchen, this small apartment, this woman who kissed me like I was someone worth coming home to.
She pulled back first. Her breathing was uneven, her lips red, her hair completely out of its pins now, falling loose around her shoulders. She looked up at me with those dark eyes, and something in my chest tightened.
"We should—" She cleared her throat.
"We should go to bed."
I raised an eyebrow. "Bold."
She shoved my chest. It did nothing.
"I meant sleep! Sleep! You're the one with the old back, I'm being considerate—"
I lifted her. Her legs wrapped around my waist automatically, her hands grabbing my shoulders, her face close enough that I could feel her breath on my lips.
"Caspian!"
"You said the bed."
"I meant—I didn't mean—put me down!"
"No."
I carried her to the bedroom. She was lighter than she should be, lighter than someone who worked as hard as she did, who carried as much as she carried. I made a mental note to feed her more. Properly. Not just when I was here.
I set her down on the bed. She looked up at me, her hair spread across the pillow, her eyes half-lidded, her lips still parted from the kiss.
"You're staring again," she whispered.
"I told you. You're worth staring at."
Her cheeks turned even more pink, if that was possible. I realized I loved watching her face change color.
Her hands slid down from my neck, over my shoulders, down my arms. She watched her own fingers move, tracing the lines of muscle, the ink that disappeared under my sleeves.
"These," she said softly, touching the edge of a tattoo. "What do they mean?"
"Nothing."
She looked up at me. Her eyes were soft in the dark. "Liar."
I caught her hand. Brought it to my lips. Pressed a kiss to her palm. "Something that belongs to a different life."
She didn't push. She just watched me with those eyes, and when I lay down beside her, she came to me like she had that first night she cried. Curled into my chest. Her hand fisted in my shirt. Her breath warm through the fabric.
"Cas," she murmured.
"Mm?"
She was quiet for a moment. Her fingers loosened, then tightened again.
"Thank you," she said. "For cooking."
I looked down at her. Her eyes were already closing, her body relaxing against mine with the trust of someone who had forgotten, or never learned, that there were things in this world that should make her afraid.
"You don't have to thank me for food," I said.
Her lips curved against my chest. "I'm thanking you for staying."
I didn't answer. I had no answer. My chest twisted at her words. I wasn't here to stay.
She was asleep before I found the words, her breathing slow and even, her hand still curled in my shirt like she was holding onto something she was afraid might disappear.
I lay there in the dark with her hair spread across my chest and her heartbeat against my ribs and the chain somewhere in this apartment, forgotten, and I let myself imagine, just for a moment, that I was the man she thought I was.
That I could stay.
That this was my life now. Small kitchens. Pasta sauce. A woman who kissed me like I was something good.
Just for tonight.
I pulled her closer. She made a small sound, shifted, tucked her face into my neck. Her arm tightened across my chest.
Tomorrow, I would find the chain. I would figure out what to do. I would remind myself why I couldn't stay.
Tomorrow.
Tonight, I held her. I pressed my lips to her hair and closed my eyes.